Good, Busy and Sick

This week was a good, busy, and sick one. We had a mini transfer with the Zone Leaders on Wednesday. Elder Murillo came here to Molina with me to work for the day. He was a little sick and he left a nice present for me when he left. By the time Thursday night rolled around my whole body ached, I was coughing, sneezing, and wanting to die haha. Not important. We’ve kept working anyways, but I’m still feeling crappy.

On Friday we had a ward activity that I planned all by myself (not exaggerating) and it was super crazy. We had a knowledge competition of the scriptures. As with all competitions there were a few arguments, a lot of yelling out answers, and a little bit of cheating haha. It all turned out good and they all had fun, but being sick, my head was about to explode when we left and I didn’t wake up until 11:00 am the next day.

Yesterday’s fast and testimony meeting was really cool cuz almost all the youth stood up and gave their testimonies, including Kiara, Fernanda, and Camilo (who received the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday!) The bishopric was really touched and the 1st councilor stood up at the end with tears in his eyes and thanked everyone, but especially the Youth for accepting God’s councils and living the Gospel. This ward has had a lot of youth go inactive, so it was a nice breath of fresh air. It seems both my sectors has had the youth improve and increase during my time there. I know it’s not me doing the work, but I can’t help but feel that maybe that’s my job here in Chile, to bring the youth of Israel back to the fold!

We’re seeing a lot of progress with Johanna and her family and it’s been so rewarding to see! It seriously has been a miracle. We had family night with them and they made that tres leche desert you talked about mom. It was soooo goood!! They also made these donut things filled with caramel and sprinkled with sugar; we ate a lot of food that day. We had a BBQ with a family for lunch, and then two family nights....all in one day.....I came home so stuffed and just went to bed haha. Johanna and her family all came to church yesterday and loved it. They’re excited about the Gospel and always tell us about the changes they’re making and the blessings they’re seeing in their family. We always congratulate them and tell them how proud we are. Last night they told us ¨we know that it’s God that does all things but ¨gracias¨ again for knocking on our door. They told us we saved their life. Danitza and Sebastian also told us they want to get baptized!! They already had a baptismal date, but they are for sure, for sure wanting to do it now!

Camilo´s sister, Carolina (9), also told me that she wants to get baptized, but she’s not sure if her mom will give her permission. She’s attended Church twice and likes it a lot. I feel that we’ve kind of come to a wall with the family though. Everyone is different. Camilo got baptized, his brother Nicolas attended twice, but now doesn’t do anything, Vicki read 200 pages of the book of mormon, but stopped and isn’t progressing as much anymore, although she did read all of the book ¨Our Search for happiness¨ and loved it and said it gave her a lot to think about and helped answer a lot of questions and doubts she had. Finally Carolina who wants to be baptized, has attended twice, but we don’t know if we can baptize her yet. It’s a little frustrating, but I just ask for revelation of what we should do with them, and I’m sure something will come from it.

As far as the rest of the week, we’ve found some good people that want to get baptized, we just need to get them to church as usual, we also haven’t been searching for new investigators very much, partly cuz I was sick and didn’t want to be outside in the cold very much, and partly cuz we’ve been focusing on the people we already have, but we have to keep searching.

Today we woke up early and took a bus to Talca to do Elder Lopez´s Visa. The bus ride takes about an hour and a half, and we sat in lines for a few hours, and then returned here (another hour and a half) so there’s the reason for the late emails. I did have two cool surprises today though. The lady at the Visa place told us we’d have to come back to Talca tomorrow in the morning to get his Visa. I said no way, so I called an Elder I knew during my time in Talca and asked him if he could pick it up for us and give it to the Assistants when he sees them. He told me that was fine then said hey there’s someone here I think you’d like to talk to. Another Elder says ¨hello? ¨ it was Elder Pitcher! He’s now serving in Talca as Zone Leader. We chatted for a little while, and he told me wow I didn’t recognize your voice, it’s gotten a lot lower since we last talked. I told him I was just sick haha. Apparently he found out we won’t be having a Conference in August, so there went my chance to see him, but he said he’s going to talk to the other Zone leaders to see if we could do a joined Zone Activity with his zone and mine! That’d be way cool, but we’ll see. Then about an hour later we get a call and Elder Lopez thought it was Elder Pitcher again, so he handed me the phone and it was Elder Hadfield from the MTC! He was transferred all the way down to Concepción, and so he talked to Elder Roberts (our MTC district leader) in the office and got my number. We talked for a while and it was fun to hear from him. He’s now senior comp and rubbed it in my face that I’m still junior comp haha I just laughed.

Well I can’t think of anything else that happened here, so if I remember something else I’ll send another email later!

Love you all

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